What is ‘appropriate’ pay at RBS?

Royal Bank of Scotland’s shares have slumped more than 40% over the past year – so that taxpayers currently face losses of around £23bn on their 81% stake in the bank.

RBS has shed many thousands of jobs in that period. Also it recently announced that its investment bank was performing worse than it hoped, so RBS is abandoning share trading and advising companies on takeovers – and a further 3,500 jobs will go.

As for lending to small business, RBS has to date marginally missed the so-called “stretch” targets it agreed with the government under the Project Merlin agreement – and like all the big banks, it stands accused of not doing enough to support smaller or younger companies that represent the UK’s economic future.

So it is unsurprising that much of the media – and many of you in the comments you leave here and on Twitter – say that it would be little short of a scandal if the bank’s senior executives were to receive big pay awards when bonuses and longer-term performance rewards are decided early next month.

From: BBC News